Richard makes several points. Perhaps the most important among them is that the announcements of shutdowns this year mainly represent anomalies. In particular, 3 of the 4 units (2 at San Onofre and 1 at Crystal River) and are due to steam generator replacements gone wrong. He points out that this should be viewed against a backdrop of 110 steam generator replacements, 57 of them in the United States. Only one, Kewaunee, was the victim of market conditions. It is indeed possible that a few other plants, particularly older, smaller, single units in merchant markets, might also be vulnerable, but just because 4 units close in one year, it does not mean that this is a trend.

Another point Richard makes is one that I hadn't previously thought much about. He observes that estimates suggest that approximately 100 gigawatts (GW) of generating
capacity will be retired
this decade, primarily because it does not make economic sense to install the pollution
control technology required by more stringent environmental standards. This is approximately 10 percent of installed capacity, and demonstrates some of the pressures the entire utility industry is facing.

He also contrasts the shutdowns to the new builds. In addition to the 4 units under construction in Georgia and South Carolina, TVA is also completing work on the long-stalled Watts Bar station. Even more important, dozens of other reactors are under construction or being planned around the globe. And I might add, some of them are in countries just entering the nuclear power arena. As Richard points out, "The nuclear energy industry is a global enterprise with a global supply
chain. It would be a mistake to gauge its health by taking a snapshot of
one country at a single point in time."

Richard points out that much of what we are seeing today is a function of the economic turn down coupled with the currently low price of natural gas.

Discussions of the surge in wind or solar power stations should be viewed with the same caution. It is easy to achieve large percentages of growth when starting from a low level. It is much harder to sustain the same rate of growth when the base level is higher or when other conditions change.

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About Me

Dr. Gail H. Marcus is an independent consultant on nuclear power technology and policy. She previously worked as Deputy Director-General of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) in Paris; Principal Deputy Director of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology; in various positions at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); and as Assistant Chief of the Science Policy Research Division at the Congressional Research Service (1980-1985). Dr. Marcus spent a year in Japan as Visiting Professor in the Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and five months at Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Dr. Marcus has served as President of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and as Chair of the Engineering Section of AAAS. She also served on the National Research Council Committee on the Future Needs of Nuclear Engineering Education. She is a Fellow of the ANS and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Marcus has an S.B. and S.M. in Physics, and an Sc.D. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT. She is the first woman to earn a doctorate in nuclear engineering in the United States.